Now that I’ve reached a sample size of near 30 animals in each group, it was time to break the code to see which group was wich. To my surprise, the worst performing group in term,s of learning was the control group:

It is unusual for between-groups comparisons to become statistically significant at the 0.005 level with a sample size of less than 50, let alone 30, but these DopR2 knock-downs in ellipsoid body ring neurons are just a class of their own:

The DopR2 receptor knock-down not only performed exceedingly well in these leaning experiments, it was also the cross with the strongest optomotor response:

And also that difference is statistically significant:

The TNT-E flies had a slight positive preference, worse avoidance (esp. in the first training period) and flew really bad. One could say they did have some learning deficits, but it doesn’t look as if learning was completely abolished (which is roughly what Andreas had found before):

Andi’s results:

Getting close to a sample size of 30! One, maybe two weeks left, depending on how much time I find to measure. Time to break the code is drawing nearer. Here the current results:

Some interesting statistics:

2.1 OMRs at start

2.2 OMRs at end

2.3 PI( preference subtractted)

2.4 statistics

1.1 OMRs at start

1.2 OMRs at end

1.3 Asymmetry Index at start

1.4 Asymmetry Index at end

1.5 PI (preference subtracted)

1.6 Statistics

2.

Finally found some time to go through all the individual fly data. All groups lost some flies that had to many or too long flight pauses, strong preferences already before training or some other screw-up during the experiment that I either failed to notice or only showed themselves in this quality control phase. And it was the red group, where I had thought everything just worked so fine, that lost most flies. More than a third of all the flies I had tested in this group failed the very basic quality control criteria – double the number of any other group. This is very annoying as it means there now are a lot more flies for me to test. Nothing to do about that, than to carry on. Here is the result after the massacre, where red lost 10 flies, green lost 5 and purple lost 2:

But even with so many flies removed, the red group still has the flies with the strongest optomotor response:

Now two weeks of data collection, but so far no time for quality control. This means a bunch of flies will likely drop out after I have been able to check for the quality of the reocrdings. So far, one group (red) seems to learn really well, while the other two are too early to tell.

Raw data avilable on the publication server.

In this project, one of the two experimental groups inhibits the ellipsoid body ring neurons using TNT-E. The second uses RNAi to knock down the DopR2 receptor in these neurons and the third is the driver control. As I am blind to the groups and it’s only been one week, the data are not terribly revealing, yet.